The ever vigilent Yisrael Medad has provided a reasoned response to the Peace Now claims about the alleged theft of Arab Land. Not surprisingly, Seymour Reich of IPF (who hasn't met a Jewish organization of which he wouldn't like to be President) and the ever, intellectually-challenged MJ Rosenberg (who never met a Palestinian he didn't like, or a religious/settler he didn't loathe) are up in arms.
The whole story reminds me of the land grab the Bethlehem Arabs tried to pull a couple of years ago (and got away with, partially). The started woking JNF land in Gush Etzion and claimed it had been sold to them. They even had Civil Administration documents to prove it. The problemwas that the certifying officer had died before the date on the deeds. In addition, it turns out that the date on the deeds was....Yom Kippur.
Nevertheless, those olive trees that the Arabs had succeeded in planting, stayed.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
All in the Family
The awards scene is, without a doubt, one of the more amusing aspects of Israeli society. Since many, if not most, of the various cultural enterprises are wo/manned by closed guilds, the result is that homogenous groups award prizes to each other in order to affirm their loyalty to the ideals of the guild.
A classic example of this phenomenon is the annual Nachum Sokolow award for journalism, which aspires to be the Israeli Pulitzer. Year in, year out, the unabashedly leftist, avowedly Post-Zionist/Post-Jewish clique that comprises most of the Israeli media grants awards for excellence to itself. Thus, we have been treated to the sight of Uri Avneri, the leading spokesman of the Palestinian Right, awarded a lifetime achievement award. Thus, it comes as no surprise that this year, Uzi Benziman, whose poison-pen invectives against Settlers, Judaism, Haredim, Conservatives (and anyone else who doesn't live near Schocken Street) has been awarded this year's prize for journalistic excellence. If you look at the list of impartial professionals on the panel (with one token closet rightist), you won't rub your eyes in amazement.
Maybe the dress code will be yellow.
A classic example of this phenomenon is the annual Nachum Sokolow award for journalism, which aspires to be the Israeli Pulitzer. Year in, year out, the unabashedly leftist, avowedly Post-Zionist/Post-Jewish clique that comprises most of the Israeli media grants awards for excellence to itself. Thus, we have been treated to the sight of Uri Avneri, the leading spokesman of the Palestinian Right, awarded a lifetime achievement award. Thus, it comes as no surprise that this year, Uzi Benziman, whose poison-pen invectives against Settlers, Judaism, Haredim, Conservatives (and anyone else who doesn't live near Schocken Street) has been awarded this year's prize for journalistic excellence. If you look at the list of impartial professionals on the panel (with one token closet rightist), you won't rub your eyes in amazement.
Maybe the dress code will be yellow.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
What can One Say?
I know they don't read my blog. They probably don't read any blogs. Hell, they probably don't read books that are not approved by the Ministry of Truth. Nevertheless, in light of yesterday's posting, today's event are unsettling, to say the least.
1. The Supreme Court voted overwhelmingly to recognize same-sex marriages (with Justice Elyakim Rubenstein, representing the sad minority of one). It brings to mind the R. Yitzhak Arama's observation, as mediated in the Introduction to the Shev Shematsa, that what made Sodom more despicable than the Benjaminites (Cf. Jud. 19-21), was the fact that they were not simply sinners, they institutionalized, and thereby sought to 'regularize,' rank immorality.
2. With rockets raining down on Sederot, with Hizbullah preparing for the next war and Iran, well, you know....Shalom Achshav could find no better time to claim that 40% (down from 90%) of the towns in Judaea and Samaria are built on privately owned Palestinian lands. These messianic hallucinators, led by head fantasiast Yariv Oppenheimer, are more concerned with destroying other Jews than with defeating their enemies.
First, much of the documentation upon which they base their findings is either faulty or forged. How do I know?I know because the city of Ma'aleh Adumim is on their list and I know for a fact that before 1948, my late uncle, Captain Yehiel Langer purchased the area with a group of investors. The investment was lost when Jordan conquered the area (yes, Arabs conquer. Imagine!). So the last legal owner was definitely a Jew.
Second, how short-sighted can these guys be? Do they really want to open this can of worms? Are they ready to hand all land that was taken by eminent domain over the past 60 years? Are they ready to hand over the Knesset, Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, the Israel Museum, all of Ashdod and who knows what else?
On the other hand, are they willing champion Jewish title to Hader (JNF), Naharayim (Privately owned), Dahaishe (JNF), the Syrian Side of the Golan (Rothschild Family), the Hebron Market (owners slaughtered in 1929), Abu Dis (Sephardic Kollel Klali), Silwan (Yemenite Owners from before 1929), and the list keeps going?
One thing I know. Yariv Oppenheimer (is he related to Mr. Michael Oppenheimer from Z100?) is continuing a long tradition. In May, 1948 Judah Magnes, the president of Hebrew University, went to Washington in order to block the declaration of the State of Israel and/or to prevent American recognition thereof. More recently, R. Y. D. Weiss joined with Iranian President Ahmedinejad to advance the cause of Israel's disappearance.
Ironically, all this just leaves me bemused. It's so outrageous that you can't really get angry.
1. The Supreme Court voted overwhelmingly to recognize same-sex marriages (with Justice Elyakim Rubenstein, representing the sad minority of one). It brings to mind the R. Yitzhak Arama's observation, as mediated in the Introduction to the Shev Shematsa, that what made Sodom more despicable than the Benjaminites (Cf. Jud. 19-21), was the fact that they were not simply sinners, they institutionalized, and thereby sought to 'regularize,' rank immorality.
2. With rockets raining down on Sederot, with Hizbullah preparing for the next war and Iran, well, you know....Shalom Achshav could find no better time to claim that 40% (down from 90%) of the towns in Judaea and Samaria are built on privately owned Palestinian lands. These messianic hallucinators, led by head fantasiast Yariv Oppenheimer, are more concerned with destroying other Jews than with defeating their enemies.
First, much of the documentation upon which they base their findings is either faulty or forged. How do I know?I know because the city of Ma'aleh Adumim is on their list and I know for a fact that before 1948, my late uncle, Captain Yehiel Langer purchased the area with a group of investors. The investment was lost when Jordan conquered the area (yes, Arabs conquer. Imagine!). So the last legal owner was definitely a Jew.
Second, how short-sighted can these guys be? Do they really want to open this can of worms? Are they ready to hand all land that was taken by eminent domain over the past 60 years? Are they ready to hand over the Knesset, Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, the Israel Museum, all of Ashdod and who knows what else?
On the other hand, are they willing champion Jewish title to Hader (JNF), Naharayim (Privately owned), Dahaishe (JNF), the Syrian Side of the Golan (Rothschild Family), the Hebron Market (owners slaughtered in 1929), Abu Dis (Sephardic Kollel Klali), Silwan (Yemenite Owners from before 1929), and the list keeps going?
One thing I know. Yariv Oppenheimer (is he related to Mr. Michael Oppenheimer from Z100?) is continuing a long tradition. In May, 1948 Judah Magnes, the president of Hebrew University, went to Washington in order to block the declaration of the State of Israel and/or to prevent American recognition thereof. More recently, R. Y. D. Weiss joined with Iranian President Ahmedinejad to advance the cause of Israel's disappearance.
Ironically, all this just leaves me bemused. It's so outrageous that you can't really get angry.
Monday, November 20, 2006
In the Mushroom's Shadow
My youth was spent in the shadow of the mushroom cloud. I still remember nuclear war drills, air raid shelters, tests of the emergency brodcasting system, and the Friday Noon test of the Newton MA air raid siren. Perhaps because I was a kid, I did not give much conscious thought to the possibility of nuclear holocaust (although we were swamped with info-mercials about nuclear fall out). It was just too far-fetched a scenario.
Or, was it?
Recently, I've been haunted by a recurrent day/nightmare that I had in the late fifties and early sixties. The US and USSR face off and the world is on the brink of Mutually Assured Destruction. Just as Kennedy and Kruschev go for the button, a shofar goes off and God intervenes, sending the Messiah. The idea that man could blow himself up was just too horrible to even imagine (before The Planet of the Apes, that is).
Or, is it?
Haman's vicar on earth, Mahmud Ahmedinijad, evidently means to hit us with a nuclear bomb, at first opportunity. (Remember this?) Every day that passes he comes closer to his goal, while Europe cries negotiate (and drools at the idea of another 6,000,000+ Jews cremated). The idiots in the Democratic Party of the United States, funded by the Shalom Aleikhemesque George ('when you're rich they think you really know') Soros, also think they can reason with Iran. Even Israelis suffer from such cognitive egocentrism, as if giving the Golan sine conditiones to Syria will stop Iran, which expects the imminent arrival of the Twelfth Imam.
Ah, but they cry, Ahmedinijad wouldn't hurt Palestinians by nuking Israel!
To which I reply, why not? He'll be sending them to heaven (maybe, since Palestinians are overwhelmingly Sunni 'heretics'). After all, as Nasrallah has said, '"We have discovered how to hit the Jews where they are the most vulnerable. The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death." [And lest you think that this is uniquely Nasrallah or Shiite bluster, the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, is reported as saying: According to the Islamic practice, Khalid addressed the following letter to Hurmuz, the Iranian Commander (in 636 CE): "Accept Islam and you will be safe. If not, agree to pay the jizya or you will have to repent. I am bringing against you a people who love death as you love life."
It is not too late. We Jews must take control of our own destiny. First, we need to do and encourage Teshuva, widespread Teshuva, in light of God's clear warning. Second, we need to change governments and elect new leaders. Third, we need to strike Iran with whatever it takes. Let them curse us in Paris, in London, in Madrid and in New York. In a zero sum game, Israel will not be the zero.
Or, was it?
Recently, I've been haunted by a recurrent day/nightmare that I had in the late fifties and early sixties. The US and USSR face off and the world is on the brink of Mutually Assured Destruction. Just as Kennedy and Kruschev go for the button, a shofar goes off and God intervenes, sending the Messiah. The idea that man could blow himself up was just too horrible to even imagine (before The Planet of the Apes, that is).
Or, is it?
Haman's vicar on earth, Mahmud Ahmedinijad, evidently means to hit us with a nuclear bomb, at first opportunity. (Remember this?) Every day that passes he comes closer to his goal, while Europe cries negotiate (and drools at the idea of another 6,000,000+ Jews cremated). The idiots in the Democratic Party of the United States, funded by the Shalom Aleikhemesque George ('when you're rich they think you really know') Soros, also think they can reason with Iran. Even Israelis suffer from such cognitive egocentrism, as if giving the Golan sine conditiones to Syria will stop Iran, which expects the imminent arrival of the Twelfth Imam.
Ah, but they cry, Ahmedinijad wouldn't hurt Palestinians by nuking Israel!
To which I reply, why not? He'll be sending them to heaven (maybe, since Palestinians are overwhelmingly Sunni 'heretics'). After all, as Nasrallah has said, '"We have discovered how to hit the Jews where they are the most vulnerable. The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death." [And lest you think that this is uniquely Nasrallah or Shiite bluster, the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, is reported as saying: According to the Islamic practice, Khalid addressed the following letter to Hurmuz, the Iranian Commander (in 636 CE): "Accept Islam and you will be safe. If not, agree to pay the jizya or you will have to repent. I am bringing against you a people who love death as you love life."
It is not too late. We Jews must take control of our own destiny. First, we need to do and encourage Teshuva, widespread Teshuva, in light of God's clear warning. Second, we need to change governments and elect new leaders. Third, we need to strike Iran with whatever it takes. Let them curse us in Paris, in London, in Madrid and in New York. In a zero sum game, Israel will not be the zero.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
A Lost Opportunity
I've decided that Abba Eban's witticism about the Palestinians, that they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, applies even more to Jews. Don't believe me? Watch this.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
After the Parade...
Only Israeli spelunkers and astronauts (of various varieties) were unaware of the fact that the so-called Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade was to have been held last Friday, or that it elicited widespread opposition (some of it, unhappily, violent). In the end, the parade was transformed into a 'Happening' at the Hebrew University Amphitheatre at the Givat Ram campus, ושלום על ישראל (sort of).
The events leading up to the parade's cancellation produced so much verbiage, and stirred such strong reactions, that I resisted writing about the issue medias in rem. Now that a week has passed, and public attention is (justifiably) rivetted upon Sederot (while Olmert and the moral midgets concentrate on political survival), I would like to venture three observations on the events surrounding the parade.
I. Dialogue of the Deaf
I think it is apparent that the attempt by homosexuals and their supporters to regularize their presence in Israeli public space through a bid for total acceptance, validation and legitimization is a natural flash-point for conflict with the Religious and Traditional communities (and not merely the Haredim). So-called Gay Rights (as distinguished from general human rights, to which all are entitled), are an expression of a fundamentally, and exclusively, anthropocentric outlook which cannot find common language with those who believe that the Torah is the Word of God. The conflict between the two, on the level of principle, is irresoluble. With all of the importance that the Torah gives to Human dignity and Human Life, there are moments and circumstances that require submission to God's Will, despite our inability to understand it.
No amount of legal casuistry or post-modern babble can explain away the fact that there are issues where the chasm between Judaism and contemporary mores is unbridgeable. That does not mean, God Forbid, that violence should be the result. It is self-evident that there is absolutely no halakhic justification or capacity for such action. Neither is anyone checking into someone's private actions. Things that are done in private are answerable to God alone. No one is God's accountant, or has the right to appoint himself to that position. However, at the same time, it is the height of arrogance, paternalism, and obtuseness to expect the Religious and Traditional communities to accept, much less validate activities that it believes will lead to the driving of Jews from their God-given patrimony.
I, once again, refer to the Rav's famous remarks on the Nature of Torah Study and Accepting the Yoke of Heaven.
II. All's Well in Geulah
A week ago Tuesday, I had to go to Geulah to buy a few things (e.g. Egg Kichel at the Brooklyn בייקערי). I was totally absorbed in a conversation about some academic issue, with son number one, and forgot that driving up to Kikar Shabbat might be, errrr, problematic. (It's a Haredi stronghold). Well, true to form, all of Rehov Yehezqel was ablaze with burning garbage, in protest of the impending parade. That was not such a surprise. It was in all the media. So I turned left, drove around and entered Geulah from the other direction. What I saw was a revelation. The street was teeming with....shoppers, families out for Pizza, you name it. There was no sign of demonstrations or rocks or what not. 'What's going on (0r, not going on),' I asked the proprietor of a household appliances store. 'Only the lunatics (משוגעים) from Toldos Aharon are carrying on,' he explained. 'The rest of us disagree with the parade, but reject their violence, also.'
III. A Parade to Har HaBayit
The only reason that the full scale parade did not take place was because the police were forced to respond to the terror threats after the incident in Beit Hanun. Obviously, the fear of violence is not a reason to deny someone his/her freedom of speech and self-expression. Hence, the Police have lost any valence in preventing Jews from praying on Har HaBayit. There is serious talk of erecting a shul outside of the Temple precincts. במהרה בימינו. אמן
The events leading up to the parade's cancellation produced so much verbiage, and stirred such strong reactions, that I resisted writing about the issue medias in rem. Now that a week has passed, and public attention is (justifiably) rivetted upon Sederot (while Olmert and the moral midgets concentrate on political survival), I would like to venture three observations on the events surrounding the parade.
I. Dialogue of the Deaf
I think it is apparent that the attempt by homosexuals and their supporters to regularize their presence in Israeli public space through a bid for total acceptance, validation and legitimization is a natural flash-point for conflict with the Religious and Traditional communities (and not merely the Haredim). So-called Gay Rights (as distinguished from general human rights, to which all are entitled), are an expression of a fundamentally, and exclusively, anthropocentric outlook which cannot find common language with those who believe that the Torah is the Word of God. The conflict between the two, on the level of principle, is irresoluble. With all of the importance that the Torah gives to Human dignity and Human Life, there are moments and circumstances that require submission to God's Will, despite our inability to understand it.
No amount of legal casuistry or post-modern babble can explain away the fact that there are issues where the chasm between Judaism and contemporary mores is unbridgeable. That does not mean, God Forbid, that violence should be the result. It is self-evident that there is absolutely no halakhic justification or capacity for such action. Neither is anyone checking into someone's private actions. Things that are done in private are answerable to God alone. No one is God's accountant, or has the right to appoint himself to that position. However, at the same time, it is the height of arrogance, paternalism, and obtuseness to expect the Religious and Traditional communities to accept, much less validate activities that it believes will lead to the driving of Jews from their God-given patrimony.
I, once again, refer to the Rav's famous remarks on the Nature of Torah Study and Accepting the Yoke of Heaven.
II. All's Well in Geulah
A week ago Tuesday, I had to go to Geulah to buy a few things (e.g. Egg Kichel at the Brooklyn בייקערי). I was totally absorbed in a conversation about some academic issue, with son number one, and forgot that driving up to Kikar Shabbat might be, errrr, problematic. (It's a Haredi stronghold). Well, true to form, all of Rehov Yehezqel was ablaze with burning garbage, in protest of the impending parade. That was not such a surprise. It was in all the media. So I turned left, drove around and entered Geulah from the other direction. What I saw was a revelation. The street was teeming with....shoppers, families out for Pizza, you name it. There was no sign of demonstrations or rocks or what not. 'What's going on (0r, not going on),' I asked the proprietor of a household appliances store. 'Only the lunatics (משוגעים) from Toldos Aharon are carrying on,' he explained. 'The rest of us disagree with the parade, but reject their violence, also.'
III. A Parade to Har HaBayit
The only reason that the full scale parade did not take place was because the police were forced to respond to the terror threats after the incident in Beit Hanun. Obviously, the fear of violence is not a reason to deny someone his/her freedom of speech and self-expression. Hence, the Police have lost any valence in preventing Jews from praying on Har HaBayit. There is serious talk of erecting a shul outside of the Temple precincts. במהרה בימינו. אמן
Rabbi Soloveitchik and the Hindu Elephant Problem
I just sent back the galleys of a very long article entitled 'In Search of the Rav," that is slated to appear in the next issue of the journal BaDaD. The article, which is cast as a review essay of a series of books by and about Rabbi Soloveitchik, attempts to highlight places where I believe the regnant understanding of the Rav, his life and his teachings have been stuck, or insufficiently understood. Instead of carping, as many do, I suggest additional avenues of investigation and frameworks of interpretation. When the book from the Van Leer Conference on the Rav's teachings is published, I'll have more to say on the matter, as well. (For those with patience, the substance of the article is declaimed here.)
I mention this, because lately I've become more aware of the fact that not only is there a far-flung controversy concerning the Rav's life and teachings (hence the reference to the Blind Men and the Elephant), but something of a closed shop seems to have developed a canon around the right to express an opinion on the matter. Discussions of Rav Soloveitchik invariably involve the same coterie of individuals, who have created an exclusive de facto 'Rav Soloveitchik Gild.'
Rav Soloveitchik had many disciples, and interacted with many people. It seems to me unfortunate that relatively few of these have recorded, much less published, their thoughts and/or reminiscences. Ironically, many who were closer to the Rav and more attuned to the nuances of his teachings have not written, while others have. This is especially true of the members of the Boston Jewish Community who new the Rav most intinmately. Important efforts have been made in this direction (e.g. Seth Farber's book on the Maimonides School and the booklet published by Maimonides.) I am firmly of the opinion that such people have an abiding moral responsibility to stand up, record and be included in the creation of the record of our amazing teacher, our Rav Muvhaq.
[In that connection, I have to applaud the efforts of the YU Commentator to solicit and publish reminiscences of the Rav, both in the YUdaica project (of the indefatigable Menachem Butler) and the Legacy series presently under way, under the aegis of Eitan Kastner.]
I mention this, because lately I've become more aware of the fact that not only is there a far-flung controversy concerning the Rav's life and teachings (hence the reference to the Blind Men and the Elephant), but something of a closed shop seems to have developed a canon around the right to express an opinion on the matter. Discussions of Rav Soloveitchik invariably involve the same coterie of individuals, who have created an exclusive de facto 'Rav Soloveitchik Gild.'
Rav Soloveitchik had many disciples, and interacted with many people. It seems to me unfortunate that relatively few of these have recorded, much less published, their thoughts and/or reminiscences. Ironically, many who were closer to the Rav and more attuned to the nuances of his teachings have not written, while others have. This is especially true of the members of the Boston Jewish Community who new the Rav most intinmately. Important efforts have been made in this direction (e.g. Seth Farber's book on the Maimonides School and the booklet published by Maimonides.) I am firmly of the opinion that such people have an abiding moral responsibility to stand up, record and be included in the creation of the record of our amazing teacher, our Rav Muvhaq.
[In that connection, I have to applaud the efforts of the YU Commentator to solicit and publish reminiscences of the Rav, both in the YUdaica project (of the indefatigable Menachem Butler) and the Legacy series presently under way, under the aegis of Eitan Kastner.]
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Wisdom from Naomi
As promised, Naomi Ragen's reflection on the present situation:
The Gathering Storm
By Naomi Ragen
Friends, Some of you have commented that I'm sending out much lessmaterial of late. This is not your imagination. As I sit in my little study in Jerusalem, overlooking the rolling hills where David once fought Goliath, I feel overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness as day after day the news gets worse and worse.
There is a line from I, Claudius, the mini-series on ancient Rome based on Robert Graves wonderful book that keeps going through my head. It is spoken by Claudius, the reluctant emperor who wishes to bring back the Republic and end the corrupt monarchy. He says: "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out."
What Claudius means, is let the horrors brought about by perversions and lies and corruption come to fruition so that people will clearly see what a state their world is in, and work for change.
We are definitely in the mud. Israeli leadership is the most incompetent and corrupt in her history. Everyone from our Prime Minister to our President is under investigation from everything from bribe-taking to rape. After all the bitter lessons of the fake Oslo Accords, that had our children dying in the streets, we have learned nothing, as Olmert goes once again to the Americans with yet another deadly plan to give our enemies more land, and with it, more opportunity, to kill us.
It's not that Israelis don't know what is going on. They do. But people are overwhelmed by the sheer pace of events that unfold with frightening speed from month to month. Still reeling from the rocket attacks on the North, we must deal with daily rocket attacks on our South and the huge weapons influx from the Philadelphi Corridor, once closely guarded by the IDF, which is now open to endless weapons imports from Egypt, thanks to a decision made by people like Mofaz and Halutz to withdraw. Every day, some other suicide bomber is apprehended. You don't hear about it, because we don't die, but that doesn't mean our enemies have stopped trying to kill us.
Some people - the reserve officers whose lives were risked in the last debacle in Lebanon- have had the gumption to rally to bring down the corrupt government, but most of us are mired in confusion and simple fatigue. We get sidetracked by foolishness, like the decision to turn Jerusalem into a world-wide venue for gay rights activism, an idea that backfired, exposing fanaticism and hatred on all sides. No, I didn't think the parade was a good idea, but I was equally appalled by the violence and destruction wreaked on Jerusalem by the parade's opponents.
I also found the activism against gay rights by the Chief Rabbinate to be the height of hypocrisy. So concerned are they with Jewish law and the holiness of the Jewish people that Chief Rabbi Amar (whose own family was arrested not long ago for assault and battery on his daughter's suitor) cancelled the much anticipated Agunah Conference. The Conference would have brought together Orthodox rabbis from all over the world in a historic effort to come up with halachic solutions to Jewish laws that encourage the blackmail and extortion of Jewish women seeking a divorce, laws which have turned the Jewish marriage ceremony into a life sentence with no possibility of parole.
And while we focus all our time and energy on these ridiculous little tempests in teapots, Iran goes on building her atom bomb unimpeded, a bomb with our name on it. Olmert smiles at us from the front page of newspapers as he shakes the hand of a smiling lame duck president, confident that the U.S. is going to stop Iran and save us. His own sons already live in America, so I guess he isn't very worried. But mine live here in Israel, and I am. The world seems mired in the same kind of lethargy and Jew-hatred which preceded the Holocaust.
Open any news channel, read any newspaper, and the story line continues to be the poor Palestinians, even though they continue to support the most corrupt, violent and dysfunctional regime on earth. The lies covering up Islamic extremism and its agenda worldwide continue to be flaunted by trendy films, TV shows, Hollywood"stars", once-respectable newspapers, public-funded radio shows.
The victory of the Democrats over the Republicans while certainly in response to the Bush administration's many failures, also no doubt shows a weakening of the resolve to face the terrorist threat head-on, and a desire to believe that there is another, easier way to secure our freedoms, the way of negotiation, of easing the "grievances"that the Muslims have against the West. As Brigitte Gabriel writes in her amazing book, Because They Hate: "Theirgrievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our democratic process.''
The Jews of America, who could do so much to strengthentheir sisters and brothers in Israel, continue to be influenced by the anti-Israel propaganda. That a large portion of funds raised for the Israeli victims of the war in Lebanon by the UJC were earmarked for Israeli Arabs, who openly sided with Nasrallah, is one symptom. The complete abandonment of the Jews of Gush Katif by American Jewry, so eager to help Arabs, is another. The government is supposedly helping them, you'll hear these people say. It's their own fault for not signing on the dotted line in time, for resisting government policy. The fact that everyone, even those who did sign, remain jobless, homeless and poverty-stricken because of their crime of living in an area that defended Israel's south from terrorist bombardment for many years, is unforgivable.
It's as if we Jews have adopted the "hate the settler" philosophy of our enemies, and wish to join the forces that want them punished for their crime of being Zionists, and patriots,and self-sacrificing, and loyal.
Jonathan Pollard, the spy who did not harm anyone, or anyAmerican interest, remains behind bars because he is a Jew who helped Israel, having long ago paid for any wrong doing, serving more time than spies who gave information to America's worst enemies and caused irreparable damage to her security. And Jews are afraid to stand up for him. That is another sign.
The rockets continue to fall on Sderot and the Negev from Gaza. Each time we try to stop it, the world press gathers like jackals to condemn us. Misinformation, outright propaganda abounds. I'm sick of it.It's like emptying a flooded cruise liner with a teaspoon.
In his book "The Gathering Storm," Churchill wrote: "How easily the tragedy of the Second World War could have been prevented: how the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous; how the structure and habits of democratic States.... lack those elements of persistence and conviction which can alone give security to humblemasses; how, even, in matters of self-preservation, no policy is pursued for even ten or fifteen years at a time. We shall see how the counsel of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents of mortal danger; how the middle course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life maybe found to lead direct to the bull's-eye of disaster." Perhaps we have passed the point of no return. Perhaps our accumulated mistakes and crimes have created a downhill momentum that can no longer be stopped by human effort, but only Godly intervention, i.e. a miracle.
Churchill wrotethat he gained comfort from the fact that when Nazi Germany finally showed her true face, in a way that even the most naive could not ignore, "my warnings over the last six years had been so numerous, so detailed and were now so terribly vindicated, that no one could gainsay me....I slept soundly and had no need for cheering dreams. Facts are better than dreams."
I doubt that the storm that is gathering, threatening all we love, and cherish and believe in, will allow us even that scant comfort. I do not want to be "terribly vindicated." I want to live out my life, and die in a good old age, my children and grandchildren safe and healthy around me, free citizens in the land of their forefathers.
This is my dream. May God help us.
The Gathering Storm
By Naomi Ragen
Friends, Some of you have commented that I'm sending out much lessmaterial of late. This is not your imagination. As I sit in my little study in Jerusalem, overlooking the rolling hills where David once fought Goliath, I feel overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness as day after day the news gets worse and worse.
There is a line from I, Claudius, the mini-series on ancient Rome based on Robert Graves wonderful book that keeps going through my head. It is spoken by Claudius, the reluctant emperor who wishes to bring back the Republic and end the corrupt monarchy. He says: "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out."
What Claudius means, is let the horrors brought about by perversions and lies and corruption come to fruition so that people will clearly see what a state their world is in, and work for change.
We are definitely in the mud. Israeli leadership is the most incompetent and corrupt in her history. Everyone from our Prime Minister to our President is under investigation from everything from bribe-taking to rape. After all the bitter lessons of the fake Oslo Accords, that had our children dying in the streets, we have learned nothing, as Olmert goes once again to the Americans with yet another deadly plan to give our enemies more land, and with it, more opportunity, to kill us.
It's not that Israelis don't know what is going on. They do. But people are overwhelmed by the sheer pace of events that unfold with frightening speed from month to month. Still reeling from the rocket attacks on the North, we must deal with daily rocket attacks on our South and the huge weapons influx from the Philadelphi Corridor, once closely guarded by the IDF, which is now open to endless weapons imports from Egypt, thanks to a decision made by people like Mofaz and Halutz to withdraw. Every day, some other suicide bomber is apprehended. You don't hear about it, because we don't die, but that doesn't mean our enemies have stopped trying to kill us.
Some people - the reserve officers whose lives were risked in the last debacle in Lebanon- have had the gumption to rally to bring down the corrupt government, but most of us are mired in confusion and simple fatigue. We get sidetracked by foolishness, like the decision to turn Jerusalem into a world-wide venue for gay rights activism, an idea that backfired, exposing fanaticism and hatred on all sides. No, I didn't think the parade was a good idea, but I was equally appalled by the violence and destruction wreaked on Jerusalem by the parade's opponents.
I also found the activism against gay rights by the Chief Rabbinate to be the height of hypocrisy. So concerned are they with Jewish law and the holiness of the Jewish people that Chief Rabbi Amar (whose own family was arrested not long ago for assault and battery on his daughter's suitor) cancelled the much anticipated Agunah Conference. The Conference would have brought together Orthodox rabbis from all over the world in a historic effort to come up with halachic solutions to Jewish laws that encourage the blackmail and extortion of Jewish women seeking a divorce, laws which have turned the Jewish marriage ceremony into a life sentence with no possibility of parole.
And while we focus all our time and energy on these ridiculous little tempests in teapots, Iran goes on building her atom bomb unimpeded, a bomb with our name on it. Olmert smiles at us from the front page of newspapers as he shakes the hand of a smiling lame duck president, confident that the U.S. is going to stop Iran and save us. His own sons already live in America, so I guess he isn't very worried. But mine live here in Israel, and I am. The world seems mired in the same kind of lethargy and Jew-hatred which preceded the Holocaust.
Open any news channel, read any newspaper, and the story line continues to be the poor Palestinians, even though they continue to support the most corrupt, violent and dysfunctional regime on earth. The lies covering up Islamic extremism and its agenda worldwide continue to be flaunted by trendy films, TV shows, Hollywood"stars", once-respectable newspapers, public-funded radio shows.
The victory of the Democrats over the Republicans while certainly in response to the Bush administration's many failures, also no doubt shows a weakening of the resolve to face the terrorist threat head-on, and a desire to believe that there is another, easier way to secure our freedoms, the way of negotiation, of easing the "grievances"that the Muslims have against the West. As Brigitte Gabriel writes in her amazing book, Because They Hate: "Theirgrievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our democratic process.''
The Jews of America, who could do so much to strengthentheir sisters and brothers in Israel, continue to be influenced by the anti-Israel propaganda. That a large portion of funds raised for the Israeli victims of the war in Lebanon by the UJC were earmarked for Israeli Arabs, who openly sided with Nasrallah, is one symptom. The complete abandonment of the Jews of Gush Katif by American Jewry, so eager to help Arabs, is another. The government is supposedly helping them, you'll hear these people say. It's their own fault for not signing on the dotted line in time, for resisting government policy. The fact that everyone, even those who did sign, remain jobless, homeless and poverty-stricken because of their crime of living in an area that defended Israel's south from terrorist bombardment for many years, is unforgivable.
It's as if we Jews have adopted the "hate the settler" philosophy of our enemies, and wish to join the forces that want them punished for their crime of being Zionists, and patriots,and self-sacrificing, and loyal.
Jonathan Pollard, the spy who did not harm anyone, or anyAmerican interest, remains behind bars because he is a Jew who helped Israel, having long ago paid for any wrong doing, serving more time than spies who gave information to America's worst enemies and caused irreparable damage to her security. And Jews are afraid to stand up for him. That is another sign.
The rockets continue to fall on Sderot and the Negev from Gaza. Each time we try to stop it, the world press gathers like jackals to condemn us. Misinformation, outright propaganda abounds. I'm sick of it.It's like emptying a flooded cruise liner with a teaspoon.
In his book "The Gathering Storm," Churchill wrote: "How easily the tragedy of the Second World War could have been prevented: how the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous; how the structure and habits of democratic States.... lack those elements of persistence and conviction which can alone give security to humblemasses; how, even, in matters of self-preservation, no policy is pursued for even ten or fifteen years at a time. We shall see how the counsel of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents of mortal danger; how the middle course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life maybe found to lead direct to the bull's-eye of disaster." Perhaps we have passed the point of no return. Perhaps our accumulated mistakes and crimes have created a downhill momentum that can no longer be stopped by human effort, but only Godly intervention, i.e. a miracle.
Churchill wrotethat he gained comfort from the fact that when Nazi Germany finally showed her true face, in a way that even the most naive could not ignore, "my warnings over the last six years had been so numerous, so detailed and were now so terribly vindicated, that no one could gainsay me....I slept soundly and had no need for cheering dreams. Facts are better than dreams."
I doubt that the storm that is gathering, threatening all we love, and cherish and believe in, will allow us even that scant comfort. I do not want to be "terribly vindicated." I want to live out my life, and die in a good old age, my children and grandchildren safe and healthy around me, free citizens in the land of their forefathers.
This is my dream. May God help us.
Back in the Saddle...
Those of you who have been so kind as to notice my extended absence, and inquire after my well-being can be reassured. I am, Barukh HaShem, fine (as are the other members of the family). My lack of posting is a combination of practical and existential factors.
Practically, I’ve been incredibly busy with good things. First, I finally received tenure here and, at the same time, pushed hard to finish my book to be published here, which will allow me to start a promotion procedure for Associate Professor. Second, and no less exciting, is my new position as Senior Staff Editor, here. In addition, my better half finished her training as an Art Therapist, here. Son #1 finished his BA, here and the next day (literally) was accepted to a Masters Program in Contemporary Jewry. Son #2 came back from his צו 8 and is back learning here. Daughter #1 finished National Service here and is learning full time, here. Daughter #2 is learning in the best Girl’s Art Yeshiva in the world, here. Daughter #3 is 8 going on 40 (and in 3rd grade here).
Existentially, events have moved too swiftly to absorb, much less post about (though I intend to discuss a few over the next few days). My feelings about the state of Israel are eloquently put by Ari Shavit and Naomi Ragen (I’ll post her’s later).
Meanwhile, though, I want to focus on the good stuff. This week is my birthday. וד' בירך אותי בכל. (You figure it out).
Practically, I’ve been incredibly busy with good things. First, I finally received tenure here and, at the same time, pushed hard to finish my book to be published here, which will allow me to start a promotion procedure for Associate Professor. Second, and no less exciting, is my new position as Senior Staff Editor, here. In addition, my better half finished her training as an Art Therapist, here. Son #1 finished his BA, here and the next day (literally) was accepted to a Masters Program in Contemporary Jewry. Son #2 came back from his צו 8 and is back learning here. Daughter #1 finished National Service here and is learning full time, here. Daughter #2 is learning in the best Girl’s Art Yeshiva in the world, here. Daughter #3 is 8 going on 40 (and in 3rd grade here).
Existentially, events have moved too swiftly to absorb, much less post about (though I intend to discuss a few over the next few days). My feelings about the state of Israel are eloquently put by Ari Shavit and Naomi Ragen (I’ll post her’s later).
Meanwhile, though, I want to focus on the good stuff. This week is my birthday. וד' בירך אותי בכל. (You figure it out).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)